Well, Christmas is only 11 days away and I am totally disorganised, with very little done and a to do list a mile long! It seems like it was only yesterday that I was getting ready for last Christmas (and panicking as usual about how much there was to do!) and here we are, a whole year later. I just don't know where the time goes! And yes, I know I keep saying that, but it is so true.

I have, however, had a few minutes to spare and made these glitter ogverlays. They were so easy to do - two of them are from commerical use overlays I have, and the other two I created myself from scratch. It actually took longer to save them, zip them and uplaod to 4shared than it did to create them all in the first place! And in case you are wondering (although I realise you are probably not bothered!), I made the two on the right.

As promised, it is commerical use friendly, so feel free to download either here or by clicking on the preview.

I'm off now to finish off a set of accounts and then perhaps make some Christmas cards (long overdue, I know, I should have made these weeks ago!).

It's been another busy day at work here - the list of accounts and tax returns to do seems never ending! However, I went shopping with my daughter last night as she needed to get a Secret Santa present for someone at work. It is absolutely fatal going shopping with her! I ended up buying a pair of shoes for myself, a small Christmas tree (plus ornaments and tinsel) for my office, a birthday present for a friend of our youngest son (he's at the birthday sleepover later today), a small stocking filler for hubbie, a Christmas present for my mum and a large teddy bear for our daughter (who wasn't really with me, didn't fall in love with the teddy, suggest it would be a good present, and most definitely was not standing right next to me at the till when I was paying for it!. All of this came out of the food budget too! I guess we're not eating this week!

So, since I'm getting in the Christmassy mood, I thought you might like some glitterflakes:

Just click on the preview or here to download. I'm afraid it's personal use only as some of the glitter effect I used was not commercial use. I'll try and make sure the next thing I do is commercial for those who prefer that.

I'm off to work on making calendars for Christmas presents, a birthday card for our son to go with the present he is taking later today, writing a tutorial on either creating drop shadows or using overlays (can't quite make up my mind which one to do), doing our church notices, and trying to get some more tax returns done. Sounds like I'll be somewhat busy!

Hope you have a lovely weekend and if you use the glitterflakes, let me know how you get on. I'd love to see what you create with them!

Well, today sees the release of the latest ADSDesigners collaboration, Holidays at Home. As you would expect with such a name, it is full of holiday themed papers, elements and alphas, so if you collect the whole collaboration, it will probably set you up for several Christmas's to come!

I've just uploaded my part of the collaboration to 4 shared, and the links here below. I kind of got carried away with the glitter, and the elements are huge! I had to split them into two zipped files as 4shared wouldn't take them in one file! The whole collaboration looks amazing, and you really don't want to miss out on this one, especially if, like me, you still have loads of cards and calendars and gift tags and so on to make!

My part of the collaboration contains:

16 papers (patterned, plain and ruled)

4 Christmas bulbs

2 Christmas decorations

Christmas tree

2 glitter splashes

6 glitter frames

3 glitter strings

Notebook

Notepaper

3 presents

5 ribbon wrappers

Snowflake overlay

Star

4 tinsels

Alpha

I did warn you that I got carried away with the glitter! The links are:

Please make sure you go visiteveryone's blog as the kits look amazing and will be a wonderful addition to your stash of scrapbooking products. The collaboration will be available all of December so there is plenty of time to go grab everything!

Thank you so much for your lovely comments about the robin and other freebies:). I am pleased you like them!

Today, I have to admit I have finally succumbed to the cold that my daughter brought home from work! She very kindly gave it to hubbie, who was generous enough to pass it along to the boys, and they in turn have been good enough to let me have it too! What a lovely kind, sharing family I have! I'm sitting here feeling all bunged up, and wishing I was back in bed, but I am now right in the middle of tax return and accounts preparation (it's the tax return filing deadline here in the UK on 31 January) and I currently have about 65 tax returns to go (and a lot of those need the accounts doing first)....... I reckon I will be busy everyday until the end of January and even then I may not get everything done....:(.

But, I have managed to have a play with Photoshop and I know I will have to get a move on, as the ADSDesigners December collaboration is due for release on Monday and I haven't even started my part yet! I've been playing around with brushes and glitter, and this is what I came up with:

They are just some swirls and pixels with added glitter, but I reckon they definitely have a Christmassy feel to them. Feel free to download them either by clicking on the preview or here. The drop shadows are on the preview only and the background papers are not included in the download.

I was fortunate enough last week to be given four tickets to the Living Crafts at Christmas Exhibition at Blenheim Palace (thank you, Crafts Beautiful magazine!), so spent yesterday attending the Craft Fair and exploring the house and grounds of Blenheim Palace with my parents and daughter.

These are just a few of the two hundred or so photos I took (I am so thankful for digital cameras and memory cards!), much to the disgust of my mother and daughter, since both Dad and I kept stopping ever few minutes to take yet another shot!

As you can see here, the weather was not too good to start off with, as it was very grey looking, cold and windy. Mind you, in Britain in November, could you really expect any less?!!!

This is the courtyard with the main entrance of the Palace:

It was really impressive! And the family still live there!

This was the fountain and I managed to catch the rainbow in the water!

This was a really beautiful place and I am determined to visit again next summer, when it will be warmer (hopefully!) and we can take our youngest son (who will be 12 by then). He would have loved it yesterday.....well, not the Craft Fair, obviously, as I can't think of many 11 year old boys who would enjoy a craft fair, but he would have loved the Palace (provided we walked through it at breakneck speed), the maze, the miniature village, the lakeside walk, and the train, and would only have got mildly frustrated at his mother stopping every few yards to take photos!

Anyhow, the Craft Fair was lovely, although it was all very expensive - kind of what we expected, really, but it would have been nice to have seen more affordable items on sale. There were lots of gorgeous knitted sweaters and jumpers, in unusual designs, but at over £100 for each one, we decided to give them a miss! There were some beautiful paintings and photographs, lots of Christmas crockery, and the food hall was scrumptious!

However, the exhibition did give me lots of ideas for Christmas, and I have made a start with a Christmas robin:

Feel free to download him either by clicking on the preview or here. Personal use only, and the drop shadows are only on the preview.

Well, here (at last!) is the acrylic frame set I mentioned a while ago. I was having a play with acrylic styles and some brushes, and finally managed to find the time to trim them down and save as png files:

They're not brilliant, but they are my first attempt, so please bear that in mind. You can download them by clicking on the preview or here.

I'm off line dancing now, so let me know what you think, and if you have time, pop over to BootifulStampz where there is a chance to win a free stamp for your crafting!

Just popping in to let you all know about the one a day giveaway from Bootiful Stampz.

Everyday for the rest of November, Sally from Bootiful Stampz is going to give away One Stamp EVERY DAY!!!! There are conditions of course! You have you to tell people about the One Day Giveaway on your blog and link back to This Bootiful Stampz Blog! You will have until 11/12pm on that day to put your name down, only once per day please but you can enter EVERY DAY!! and of course for EVERY DAY that you do enter, you will have to post on your blog! You could win once/twice or three times who knows! All names that have answered that day and have posted on their blog (links will be checked) will go into a hat and the winner announced the next day! A new post will be made each day and you just add your name to that post!

Just to let you all know that Crafts Beautiful are having an online party on 29th/30th of November and there are over £3000 worth of prizes to be won including:

a Polaroid photo printer;

Lakeland hampers;

luxury Christmas decorations from All Wrapped Up;

bead kits:

plier sets;

subscriptions to the craft mags craft books;

knitting bags packed with goodies;

a cuttlebug;

craftroom multi-tool plus accessories from Helix;

Mr Site website packages;

Panduro papercrafting products;

a Claire Aristides jewellery day school;

AND MORE!

Not only that but there are exclusive downloads that will be available for a limited time only (throughout the weekend, there will be new ones uploaded every couple of hours) including over 75 backing sheets, projects, knitting patterns, motifs, recipes and more!

There are also lots of activities going on within the forum: quizzes, practical challenges abd there's even more prizes and crafty product for FREE to some lucky posters! See here for further details.

Well, I was actually only meaning to let you have some flowers and branches I made using a brilliant Monica Larsen action, but on checking the TOU, I can't give just these away as freebies, they have to be part of something much larger.....

So, I had a play with some patterns and brushes today, messed around with the blend mode and came up with Floral Experiment (for want of a better title):

I made the bird yesterday, as after seeing so many literally flying around the digital scrap book world, I decided to create my own template. And since I rather like this bird, you will probably see a lot more of it in a variety of colours and patterns!

The kit contains:

10 papers (they may look similar, but they are all different)

3 frames

3 buttons

2 note papers

2 birds

2 branches with flowers

I'm afraid it is only for personal use but you can download the papers here and the elements here. Thanks to Monica Larsen and ActionFx for the actions and buttons.

Well, I've been out preparing accounts at client premises for the past two weeks and am likely to be out most of this coming week as well. Unfortunately, because I am out all day, I have to work at night when I get back doing the other things that I would normally have done in the day - letter writing, payroll, and other such exciting stuff!

It has meant that any designing time has been cut right down. I have, however, managed to make some flowers and some acrylic photo frames, so will post some of these later today.

But in the meantime, here's some photos taken on the drive to Sheffield last Saturday. They are mainly of the sunrise (we had to leave early to be there for 9:30 and had some glorious views over the Peak district). some of the photos are a bit dark, but hopefully you can see the amazing sunrise in them.

This one was a squirrel running across the wall in the layby where I pulled over so I could take some photos. I probably drove everyone in the car mad with the number of times I kept stopping...but it is kind of difficult to take a photo whilst driving! The squirrel looks in focus here, but when the photo is the right size, he (or she) is actually a little blurry. I consider that I did a good job in actually managing to get the squirrel in the photo in the first place, blurry or not!

This one here looks particularly barren. There were some lovely views before we got here, but nowhere to stop and park the car while I took a photo, so you'll have to make do with this shot taken from the layby!

We went to Sheffiled to attend Sloshfest Sheffield, which was a remarkable event. It was a three day event, but we could only go on the last day. If you want further details regarding this, take a look at www.emergewales.com. It was an eventful day, with lots going on, and some of it was "strange". Think Lakeland plus some, and you will have an idea of what was going on. You could feel the presence of God there, but it was nothing like the very high Church of England church where I used to go.

This is just a quick post to let you all know that the ADSDesigners November Collaboration, After dusk, is due for release tomorrow. I'm just in the process of uploading mine to 4shared, so watch this space! I've seen the previews, and the kit looks amazing, so it is well worth taking a look and seeing what you can pick up! There are some really talented designers in the group.

Here's a sneak peak of my contribution:

I'm out all day tomorrow, so will try and post before I leave, but the collaboration will be up all November, so it gives you plenty of time to visit everyone's blog!

As an accountant here in the UK, between now and the end of January is my busiest time of year as I struggle to get all the tax returns and accounts sorted by the tax return filing deadline of 31 January. Since I don't have anyone to help me do the accounts, this means that I work all sorts of hours and most days of the week in order to get all the work done. As a result, I have very little free time although I am taking some time off at the moment to have a play with Photoshop!

This week has been particularly busy as I have been out at a client's premises most of the week and it will be the same for the next two, possibly three weeks as I have two large sets of accounts for different clients to do. I get so busy I forget to not only look at the clock to see what time it is, but also at the calendar and forget what day it is and where we are in the month! I had mad panic this week as I actually looked at the calendar and realised that our car needed to be taxed at the end of this month, so we would have to get it MOT'd on the next week.... one frantic phone call later to the garage, and it was booked.

Anyhow, since I've had most of the day off so far I thought I'd let you have another freebie. I've been playing around with cardboard styles and trying to recolour them and this is what I came up with:

You can either click on the preview or here to download, and it is for personal, commercial or scrap for hire use. Whilst they are not quite the prime colours someone requested, they are the best I can do at the moment as I am still working on blend modes, recolouring, hue/saturation, etc. I love all the different things you can do with Photoshop, but there is just so much I still don't know how to do.

I'm off to do some work now and then I need to do our church notices for tomorrow as well as try and have an early night, which would be going some if I can get all that done since it is now almost 4 pm here!

Well, I've not been around much because last week, I took a trip to St Andrews as our 17 year old son wanted to go see the University since they had an open day last Wednesday. I went to St Andrews myself for four years, and I had completely forgotten just what a wonderful place it is. It has really got to be one of the absolutely best places to go to University in the whole world (not that I'm biased, mind;)).

The weather on the way up was atrocious. We left at 5 in the morning, and were faced with this on the way up:

The above is the traffic on the M6 - it wasn't actually raining at this point (or if it was, it was only very light rain), but just take a look at the low clouds. But shortly after this, once we had managed to get through Edinburgh (I took the wrong turn just as we hit the outskirts of Edinburgh and it then took us an hour to get form one side of the city to the other with all the roadworks and what not!), we were on the Forth Road Bridge in torrential rain:

The drive from there to St Andrews was awful, with spray and all sorts on the road. But when we finally arrived, what a change in the weather. We had a beautiful afternoon, with blue skies (albeit cloudy at times) and glorious sunshine. Of course, I was in my element taking loads of photos! Here are the old ruins:

We used to revise in the grounds there in May before our end of year exams. There is a long wall which you can't see in the photo but it is a real sun trap so you can revise and get a tan at the same time!

And this is the harbour:

Looking across to the pier:

The Atlantic Ocean:

A misty shot of the castle ruins:

Looking back from the pier at the town:

On the pier looking back at the old cathedral ruins:

Part of the castle ruins:

This was taken on the Wednesday morning - we have brilliant blue skies all day and it was absolutely gorgeous, really warm and sunny:

And a better shot of the castle:

Sam loved it, and is going to apply here, so it remains to be seen whether they make him an offer and if he can get the required grades.

I'll be back some time this week with another freebie - don't know what yet, or when , as I have four tax returns, amendments to a set of accounts and a set of company accounts to do plus a trip to Warwick University tomorrow for their open day! It's a busy week!

It was absolutely freezing here this morning when I got up, and if it is like this now in early October, then just how cold will it be in December/January? I love Autumn, and Winter, but never look forward to the cold mornings when I have to allow at least 5 minutes before the school run to get rid of all the frost on the car windscreen and windows! We changed our car last October, and the one we have now has heated seats for the driver and front passenger. I thought these were just a luxury item and not a necessity (our car was not new when we bought it, so it is not something we had to pay for specially), but oh, boy, do I appreciate the heated seats when the mornings are cold!

Have you seen the new Autumn kits that have been released in the digital shops recently? I don't know what it is about Autumn, but as well as the usual pumpkins, and Harvest stuff, plus what seems to be the obligatory Halloween kits (I'm afraid I don't "do" Halloween), there are also lots of owls about in the kits. So I thought I'd have a go at making an owl myself, and came up with these:

The first one is an owl template, in both a psd file for those with Photoshop and seperate png files for each layer for those using other programs, and the second one is a set of owls made with different papers. The template is for commercial use, but the individual owls are only for personal use.

Download the template here and the set of owls here or click on the above previews. Let me know what you think, as this is the first time I've done anything like this :).

I have just read Pioneer Woman's latest blog entry and if you have never read her blog, you must go check it out:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/confessions/ (Sorry, I just can't get the hyperlink thingy to work today so you'll have to copy and paste this into your toolbar!)

It is awesome, and always makes me laugh, cry and run through a whole gamut of emotions. The latest blog is about how when she and her hubbie were first courting, he took her out to the back of beyond (where they now live!)and she saw a woman mowing the grass in her bra and knickers, 'cos you never see anyone out there in the back of beyond, obviously, so you can do that sort of thing. Then in order to take a photo of an amazing sunrise, Pioneer Woman recently dashed outside wearing only a small white curtain wrapped around her like a toga and a pair of really ugly sandals...only to find that at the crack of dawn, there were one or two people about to watch her looking somewhat less than glamorous in her very fetching curtain!

Living in the middle of rural Shropshire (the county that most people have never even heard of!), means you never see sights like that and are more likely to come across a ferocious spider rather than someone half naked pushing around a lawnmower. And talking of ferocious spiders, I walked into our garage this morning (half of which has been converted into my office) and in the large sink there was positively the most enormous spider you have ever seen. I dashed into action, turned on the tap and practically flooded the sink and garage floor with water in an attempt to get rid of the spider. But it refused to go down the plughole (it actually wouldn't fit, it was so big) so when I thought it was dead, I turned the tap off.....

Did you know spiders can breathe underwater? I'm sure they must be able to because it was underwater for ages and as soon as the water had all drained out, it started uncurling its legs and trying to get out of the sink!!!! I must have tried three times to get rid of it, obviously without touching it as there was no way I was going to do that, until eventually, I ended up putting the plug over it as it was stuck in the plughole, and then our youngest son had his big brother dispose of it for me later.

It just goes to prove the old adage that men (or teenage sons in this case!) are good for three things: putting out bins,lifting heavy objects and killing spiders!

You know, when I signed up for this collaboration, I though I had loads of time, and yet before I knew it, the end of the month had rolled round and I was panicking over how much I had not done! I'm still hoping to get at least an extra hour in each day (in lieu of the 48 hours a day and 14 days in a week I really need) but so far, my prayers have been unanswered. Guess all I really need is better organisation!

Anyhow, the Sugar Shoppe collaboration is released today, and here is the preview of my contribution:

Download the papers here, and the elements here (or click on the papers and elements previews).

This is an awesome collection of kits, so go take a look and see what you think. The links will remain up for all of October, which should give you plenty of time to get to see each one. Happy downloading!

Well, I have so much work on at the moment, I am having to get up extra early to try and fit everything in......but somehow, I never seem to make any serious in roads into my "to do" list. I have several deadlines this coming week, so need to work most of the weekend, but I also need to sort out my computer, back up onto my new hard drive and get the my laptop to access my accounts data from the desktop direct! Sounds like a fun packed weekend either way, eh?!!

I'm having a look at designing courses right now. An amazing opportunity has come my way and I have the prospects of potentially being able to go on several online designing courses and then review the courses! Sounds like a dream come true, to be honest and I can't wait to get started!

In the meantime, however, I need to do our Church notices for tomorrow morning, and then try and reconcile a client's VAT with the accounts program he has been using. The notices will be fun though, as I get the chance to use Photoshop to make bible verse tags, which I really enjoy. And talking of which , did you see the video for the release of Photoshop 4? I would love a copy of that, especially the full all singing all dancing master edition, but no way can I afford that sort of money at the moment... guess I'll just have to put it on my wish list!

Despite all the work, I have managed to make a freebie, and here it is:

It's a set of four paper bits that can be used as photo frames or mats, or any way you want really. They are varying sizes, but can obviously be resized to suit. I created these from scratch, so they are for commercial use, personal use and scrap for hire. Feel free to use them as you will, just don't repackage and claim them as your own.

I don't know what the weather is like where you are, but it is a beautiful sunny day here in Shropshire. It makes a pleasant change to see the sun after all the cold, damp weather we have been having recently. I was tempted to take the children out for the afternoon, but unfortunately, I have to work.

However, I have managed to make the promised freebie despite having spent most of yesterday afternoon designing a poster for our church away day and in trying to keep apart two of my sons, who seemed determined to start World War 3 in our house. It got to the stage at one point where I took the power cable for the computer away from the elder son, and had to physically restrain the younger from kicking his brother to pieces!

Anyhow, here is the freebie, at last - a set of cardboard background papers. Feel free to download, but please note this is for personal use only due to the restrictions on the overlays, etc that I used to create these.

Download by clicking on the preview, or here. Let me know if you find these useful ;).

....probably one of the most terrifying things I've ever done and it was an amazing experience that I would, I think (!), do again.

There were 5 separate sites in the forest, and the instructor was there for the first one, but then we were left on our own, although the instructors did patrol each site in case of problems. It involved going up rope ladders, across wires, ropes, cargo nets, swinging from trees, zip wires, wooden tunnels, and all sorts and my children loved it, although our daughter was, like me, terrified as well! The zip wires got longer and longer, but I was never able to manage to land facing forwards. Each time, I ended up arriving at the end facing backwards, digging my heels in and ending up flat on my back with bits of bark down my shirt, cramp in my legs and not being able to get up because I had stopped just short of the end and the ropes were too taut to allow any give!

And don't mention the cargo net! There were actually two of these - one in site 1 and the other, much bigger one, at the end. Fortunately for me, there was an alternative route to the larger cargo net, so I climbed through a wooden tunnel instead! The first cargo net, which was much smaller and nowhere near as high, was bad enough. I actually had trouble getting off the platform and swinging over to the net - we weren't very high up, but to actually let go and swing over about 10 feet top the net took a lot. I ended up sitting down on the edge of the platform before I actually had the nerve to let go!

Then of course, when I did, I swung, probably not ungracefully, into the cargo net, and grabbed on for all I was worth - or at least I tried to. what the instructors don't tell you is that when you reach the cargo net, having jumped off the platform (or slipped off as I did), you are travelling with some speed. This means that the cargo net, which is attached to the supporting trees at various points, moves with you, so if you don't grab on the first time you hit it, you start swinging backwards again......but then the force of gravity, centrifugal, centripetal forces and whatever kick in, and like Newton's balls, you start swinging back to the net again. Fortunately, I was able to grab onto the net at that point, but not do much else. It took a while for me to extricate my elbows and arms from the net (I had grabbed on with everything I could!) and start (very slowly) trying to work my way across and upwards to the next platform. And boy, was that hard work! The net was moving all the time, and it took strength to grab onto the ropes and move up. At one point, I thought the instructor was going to come to my rescue (and just how mortifying would that have been!) but I reckon all he did was hold onto the bottom of the net to steady it, so eventually, I managed to crawl onto the platform and hang on for dear life! Of course, my children though this was hilarious!

The zip wires were definitely the best (once I plucked up the courage to leave the platform!) and the last one was so long, it was awesome!

Definitely something to maybe do again when I have recovered, but if we never go again, at least I now have the certificate to prove I completed the course!

Anyhow, I haven't got a freebie yet but am hoping to have one later today or tomorrow so come back later to see what I have come up with!

Well, it's Friday lunchtime here and I'm trying to get some work done, but am really looking forward to the weekend, I think! My daughter has treated me and her brother to a session at Go Ape, in Delamere Forest in Cheshire. If you don't know what this is, then take a look at this:

I'm still not sure just how worried I should be having seen some of the videos on youtube taken by people who've taken part in this. I'm not convinced I won't come home with 2 broken legs (at the very least) but on the other hand, it would be so neat to be able to say I had done something like this! the one thing I am concerned about though, is the zipwire, which you can see below on the far right:

It seems awfully long! I'll let you know how I get on next week - assuming I'm still in one piece!

In the meantime, I've been having a play with overlays and stuff, and came up with this set of papers:

Feel free to download it by either clicking on the preview or here. Use it as you will, just don't repackage and claim as your own.

I decided this month to take part in the ADSDesigners quick page/brag book challenge in which we have to design a mini kit, share it with others in ADSD and then create QP and brag book pages using all the kits. Well, I haven't had time as yet to do any QP's, but here is my minikit, if anyone is interested. Feel free to download it and use it as you will, just don't repackage and claim as your own.

The sunflower was grown by my husband and was absolutely ginormous! I am waiting for it to all dry out now so I can get some seeds for it and then hopefully, plant these (or get hubbie to, since he's the one who does all the gardening;)) so next year we have a bumper crop of sunflowers!